Whatever small sputter of joy Lozen managed to scrounge up from putting that bastard in the ground was struck down when she heard a voice break through the silence clutching the mill. "Did you hear that?" She didn't need much more than that before assuming the worst. There were other guards outside, of course one of them was going to hear the commotion.
She didn't have long before someone looked inside and even shorter before they noticed the body, but there was a reason she had come here other than killing this bastard. Her hands rushed down to the madman's pockets and found the one thing that could help to rid everyone of the deadman. Coins. Silver in making and all trapped within his pockets. She slipped them into her own before turning her attention elsewhere.
There should have been a window somewhere above here that gave her access to the roof and hopefully, the top floor of that office building. She whipped down her knife and sheathed it before rushing back towards where she had laid her bow. It wasn't much, but at this point she was going to need every advantage she could get.
No one wandered in yet as she rushed back up the steps and froze as she smelled the old blood again. A hand went up to her nose and her eyes scoured the slipped walls in an attempt to find a window or maybe a hole. There weren't any windows, but there was one tiny crack in the wooden planks that constructed the wall on the right. It wasn't much, but it was a start. She drew the hatches she had kept at her sided and started hacking away at the barrier until she managed to tear a decent sized hole in it.
It was a tight squeeze, but before long she found herself crawling out onto the rooftop of the mill. It was a tad steeper than she expected, but nothing she had not expected. Her feet gently skidded down the roof in a compromise between speed and discretion. There was a row of windows where the roof met the top floor and most of them were as dark as the ash stained earth. She couldn't see any moment inside and thankfully, it looked as though someone had forgotten to close one of the windows.
A wave of warm air washed over her as she slipped inside, making her freeze for a moment in expectants of there being a lantern or person she had not noticed. As he turned out, it was only her and the heat source she felt hanging in the air seemed to be filling the entire room. She appeared to be in some sort of old office with a desk laid out that was slopping to the left due to its broken legs and had an overturned bookshelf right in front of it. The doorway left hanging from it's last hinge and creaked as it was blown in the winds leaking in through the window. Apart from that, Lozen couldn't hear a thing.
She kept herself close to the ground and light on her feet as she drifted over towards the doorway and peaked out just enough to see out into the hallway beyond. It wasn't anything special. Hell, it was even less so. The old wooden floor was covered in more holes than not, all the doors were either broken or missing and the stench of mold filled the air. It was clear this place had once been made to hold a massive operation, but was now, for some reason, just another decayed tribute to what was still trying to be. Not even the colonizers succeeded every day. Some part of this place still knew to spit them out.
But nevertheless, while the hallway was empty, the floor board moaned even before she stepped foot into them. On one hand, she didn't want to know what would happen if she started walking across it, but on the other, it wasn't as if another creak would be unexpected. She took one last look down either end to make sure there weren't any guards before gently resting a leg on one of the planks outside. It squeaked, but no more than any of the others did on their own and gave her enough confidence to start slinking down the hallway.
Every step felt like it would be the one that went just a little too far and would be proceeded not by another, but the sound of men marching up the step and shouting that there was an intruder. What made her nervous however was the fact that as she crawled, her limbs continued to scream. Not in the way they had before where the shear strain of her travel, but in concentrated stabs that lined up perfectly with her wounds. She knew that Florentine had gotten lucky in their fight. She just didn't know to what extent until now. All of her limbs felt as if they were covered in barbed hooks that tugged at her flesh with every step and the blood leaking from them certainly wasn't helping. She wasn't sure how much longer she could last, but it had to just be enough to find and put down Iscariot.
Judging from the depth of the office she wandered through, the hallway must have been near the middle of the building and the only place Isacriot could have been was behind one of the doors. She peered around each of the doors and for the longest time, only found more old offices or storage spaces filled with nothing but wrecked furniture and dust. Nothing unexpected apart from the heat that felt as if it was growing thicker with every step she took. Lozen stopped every once in a while to ponder it before she realized she was getting closer to whatever the source was.
It was there near the end of the hallway. She was surprised she hadn't noticed it, but as she got closer, she could see the flickering outlines of a light cast against the wooden floor. Nothing could be heard just yet and there didn't appear to be anything moving inside the door from which she saw the light trickle out. She slowed her approach as she arrived at the edge of the empty door frame and was about to peer inside before a voice cut through the silence. "You don't have to keep sneaking around like that. The doors wide open in case it wasn't obvious."
It was him alright. The same man who she had heard around the campfire. His voice was just as vapid and unalarming as before and some small part of her thought to trust it. There weren't any other guards as far as she could tell and he wasn't screaming for help yet. Besides, he still sounded so very tired in a way that she found strangely genuine. "There won't be anyone around. I made sure the guards would keep off this floor. If you have something to say, I recommend you do so now before we start our business." He continued before a steady, exhausted breath escaped his lips. Lozen half considered just ending it right then and there, but there was still something she needed to know about this man and she wasn't going to get a better chance than this.
With her axes still in hand, she slowly stood back up and crept out into the open doorway. Just beyond was another decaying wreck of an office, though this one had several improvements made upon it. The desk in the back seemed in good condition if not a tad stained and lining the walls appeared to be dozens upon dozens of wanted posters. Each of them had different faces plastered on them, but the name was always the same. Gregor Iscariot. The bounties assigned seemed to be random, but they were bounties nonetheless. Though nothing that caught Lozen's attention.
"You could buy an entire state with all of them." A voice said, pulling her attention towards the man seated behind the desk. He was scribbling something down into a small leather book lying on the desk with a group of candles placed vicariously around him. His eyes were obscured behind the loose curtain of dry, pale hair flowing from his scalp, but even then she could tell they were focused on his little journal rather the. Her. She couldn't spy any weapons around him, even ones that had been left lying against the walls and so she felt a tad more at ease.
"I'm not joking either. The Union acquired Florida's for 5 million dollars and all these bounties together equal......just shy of three million dollars I believe. But I assume that's not why you're here." He continued.
"Not anymore." Lozen replied. "You burned down an entire village. I'd say that's a tad more important."
"You'd be one of the..." He glanced up as he heard her voice and their eyes finally met. His own seemed just as burdened as usual and Lozen wasn't quite sure how exactly to take them. "Oh...Well, I can certainly say I didn't expect you."
"If I'm lucky, they never do."
He glanced over her blood and mud stained body before continuing "I see you had some trouble getting in here."
"Florentine is dead."
Iscariot paused again while his face refused to change even an inch.
"Unfortunate." He muttered without much passion.
"He worshipped you. Killed for you. That's not unfortunate. It's unforgivable."
"Nothing I could have done would have helped that man, let alone stop him."
Lozen froze for a moment this time and glanced over at the posters before saying "You were deceiving him."
"Excuse me?"
She swung a finger over to one of the postures and said "That man there is missing an eye and the one next to him has scar running over his forehead. You're not Gregor Iscariot, are you?"
"Does that change anything?"
"No."
"Then it does not matter."
"You've been claiming to be a man whose death would make my life much easier."
"Then....there was a man who went by that name. Stubborn fool, but a rather intelligent one. He and Florentine tried taking the bounty on my head. They didn't succeed. I killed that man and gouged our Florentines eyes with an old boar tusk. Took the name and his gun, but not much else. If he was the man you're looking for, I'm sorry to say that he is already dead."
Lozen raised an eyebrow at that and asked "Is that so? Then who are they?" She gestured to the walls.
"Thieves, murderers, forgers, gang leaders, some of them I even think were criminals, but they're all Gregor Iscariot I've found out."
"Oh...it's a title."
"Not quite. I think it was an alias at first. First man I could found claiming to be Gregor Iscariot died ninety years ago and was named Thomas Archibold. Not a name that strikes fear into the soul's man."
"And the rest?"
"Well, when a name comes along with such a reputation and without a face to it, men are inclined to use it to their advantage."
"Like you?"
"I.....I suppose."
".....Why did Florentine follow you if you were not Iscariot?"
"I don't know. He always talked about being worthy and needing scars or something. Personally I think he was just another lunatic. Plain and simple."
"That makes it worse."
"Indeed.....but if it helps, I don't think he was looking for that Iscariot. I think he would have followed any Iscariot that told him his scars were anything but what they were."
"A chance tragedy." Lozen finished as she grimaced. "Pathetic."
"Really?" Iscariot commented. "I find it rather.....I suppose the only word is tragic. But I assume you're not here for the tale of another lunatic following fools into their grave."
Lozen pauses for a second to suppress the anger welling up inside her before reminding herself of why she was here. "No. There should have been a stack of coins on Iscariot's person. Did you find them?"
Iscariot looked up as if in thought before saying "Ahh.....and why would you want that?"
"The deadmen you killed back in the village were Chunuxu. The souls of people brought back to life through what I can assume is sheer hatred for the ones who murdered them. As far as I can tell the only way to put them back in the ground is to kill the one who killed them, check, and collect what the murderer stole from them. In this case, coins which I know for a fact, do not leave the side of the owner. So where are they?"
"You think I am the owner?"
"If there not in the hands or the murderer or Chunuxu, I suspect they may be able to. Now show them to me."
Iscariot froze up for a moment before a small smile crawled across his face and a hand slipped down into his pocket. "Very good. You act like you've been dealing with these creatures longer than I and trust me, I have buried quite a few people." He said as he tossed a handful of silver coins onto the desk. Lozen quickly swept them off the table and crept back away from his desk before saying "Just more.....intimately."
"So....is that all you're here for?" He asked as he closed the book and leaned back into his chair. "I think you know the answer to that." She replied as she dropped the coins in her pocket and drew her axe once again. "The book. What's in it?"
"Nothing that concerns you. Just.....everything I can still remember and that others would still want to hear."
There was a strange sadness in his voice that piqued her curiosity for one more moment. "What's your name?"
"Gregor Iscariot."
"Your real name."
"Oh...it doesn't matter."
"Did it mean so little to you?"
"At the time, yes, and now, it should be the same to you."
"If you insist." Lozen said as she adjusted her grip around her axes. A part of her thought it would be easy, but it was a part she repressed when she realized something that should have never slipped her mind. His hands were behind the desk.
She leap out the door frame just as she saw his hands lash out from his belt line and heard the sound of gunshots ring out. Her stomach crashed down against the floor, something she did not intend, but which definitely saved her life. She counted only five shots rushing overhead before the firing stopped, a fact that drove her back onto her feet and away from the office Iscariot took residence in. He was fast, more so than she expected someone of his age to be and she didn't have a gun. He wasn't supposed to be that capable, but she could still overcome him if she played it smart.
First things first, get out of his line of-BANG!! She ducked into one of the many offices facing the mills slanted roof before she could formulate a thought. BANG!! Another round rushed through the walls of the office around her, narrowly missing her neck even with a wall in the way. BANG!! One more round, this time bursting through the rotting wall right in front of her and causing Lozen to drop down to a crouch. "You're too loud, stranger." Isacriot called or as he fired another round at where Lozen's footsteps leapt up from. She needed to keep something between herself and his weapons. No. She needed to disarm him.
Her eyes went to the window and, in a fit of possible insanity, rushed towards the opening before Iscariot could fire any more rounds. She kept back through it and ducked down right before another couple of rounds burst through the plaster surrounding the opening. Her feet burned as she struck the steel, but she didn't have time to make sure they were alright. She sheathed her axes, and clamaber her way up onto the roof right above the window. There was a small part of her that wasn't sure this would work, but he was still just some old man with a limited number of ammo. If this worked, she wouldn't have to worry about disarming him at all. She just needed to get it away from him.
She could hear his footsteps rush into the office she had exited, each with a speed that she had a hard time believing came from such a feeble man. He stopped just in front of the window with the point of his rifle peeking just outside the opening. It scanned across the rooftops for a moment before being pulled back inside and followed by Iscariot climbing through the window. Perfect. Just as he raised her weapon again, Lozen leapt off the roof with the intent to bring her axes down onto the nameless man's back. However, even the tiny sound of her feet pushing off against the iron was enough to give her away and with that on indication, Iscariot was ready.
He spun around on surprisingly limber legs and swiped his rifle upward before firing off one more shot. Lozen wasn't sure where he would have hit if she hadn't reacted as she did and in the moment, she didn't care to think about it. She managed to collide the end of her axes down onto the muzzle of the rifle and wrench it away from her before the bullet could be fired. It was an awkward landing and deflection that resulted in the two of them colliding partially in mid air, but she managed to just get enough of a grip around the rifle to force it down to the ground. There was a tiny struggle with Iscariot trying to pull his rifle away from her hatchets, but Lozen managed to gain enough leverage to pry the weapon away from his grasp. It clattered to the wooden below and for a brief moment, Lozen thought this might be over before long.
It lasted about two seconds. She expected Isacriot to stumble away, harmless without his rifle, but in an instant she felt a blow smash into her wrist before even knew what was happening. Her hatchet fell to the ground and in a bout of panic, Lozen rushed away from the man before another strike could occur. When she was sure she wouldn't be hit again, she took a look around her and just barely managed to see Iscariot drawing a pistol before he had a time to fire a single shot. Out of pure reaction, she reeled her hand back and tossed her axe towards him, barely managing to strike the revolver out of his hand before he could use it. It wasn't pretty, but it worked.
Without having time to think, Lozen rushed towards Iscariot or more accurately the axe that had somehow fallen from her hand and scooped it off the ground before swiping it out at the man. He had already leapt back, crawling up the rooftop and snatching up an object that had just started sliding down by his foot. Lozen expected it to be his pistol, but as it turned out, he had actually picked up the other axe. She wasn't sure if this was by accident or not, but regardless, it shouldn't have been a problem.
She lunged again at Iscariot and tried stabbing her blade down onto him. However, against her expectations, Iscariot managed to counter everyone of her attacks with an expertise and strength that his appearance would suggest. His strength and agility seemed to somehow be greater than even Florentines. He must have had previous experience with that axe, otherwise he was the luckiest man in the world or one of the most talented she had ever met.
"Decent." Isacriot commented before sliding the blade of his axe right underneath her own, hooking it right at the point where the slate of steel met the wooden handle. "But rusty." He said before he thrust the blade up in an attempt to yank it out of her hand, but Lozen slapped her other hand on the hilt before the pressure could disarm her. For a brief moment, their hands were flung up over their head and Lozen took advantage of it before smashing a foot right into Iscariot's gut. He stumbled up the roof for a moment and his posture was ruined, so when his axe came down to block another one of Lozen's strikes, the weapon came spinning out of his hand.
She would have gone for the kill then and there, but judging from how such a move had turned out before, backed off for a moment. Iscariot seemed to freeze in place for a moment as well and she would have assumed it was from fear if not for the stance he had slipped into. His right leg was in front of his left and his arms were suspended while pulled back until the elbows were bent while his hands remained loose and pointed right at her. She couldn't identify what it was, but she could tell it was a stance of some sort. One that he seemed far too comfortable in.
His hands seemed to follow her axe as she shuffled it between her hands, telling her he must have been ready. Strange and not the least bit comforting. "You should have brought a firearm." Iscariot said to which Lozen replied "And lure every guard here."
"It doesn't look like that's much of a factor anymore."
She didn't need to wonder about what he meant for long before her ears caught the sound of voices rising up from the ground below. The whispers of 'I heard gunshots!' and 'Shit! It's the boss!' could be heard rising up into the air and rushing towards the office building behind her.
Shit. He was right. Her cover was blown and they'd be on her before long if she didn't end this quickly. No wait, that wouldn't work either. Even if she killed Isacriot, those bastards would probably never let her-he was drawing something else. She!! He had another pistol!
Lozen lunged at Iscariot and managed to swing her axe down onto the guns in his hands. It was an awkward swing and one that certainly didn't give her any help. This time, Iscariot managed to hook his own arm under the axe and pushed it back before slamming a flat palm right against her hand. It was a calculated move and one that demolished her grip once again, this time leaving the both of them disarmed.
Before, she would have assumed she would be the obvious victor. Iscariots was easily twenty years older than her and she knew how to handle herself pretty well in a fight. Now, she felt the overwhelming urge to dash away from him before he could land another blow. Whoever Iscariot actually was, he clearly knew what he was doing. That stance indicated he knew some sort of fighting style and he was clearly more vigilant than anyone else his age. But then again, if he managed to put down Iscariot and lead all these people, then he had to know how to fight.
And fight he did. His hands were like vipers leaping out and biting down on her joints, leaving a feeling of envenomation that made her veins burn. It was quickly getting harder to move her arms as he continued to snap down on her and she started backing away from him before long. However, he wasn't letting up. She was just barely keeping out of range of his strikes, but she knew she couldn't back up for long. If her back hit the wall behind her, then she'd be cornered and beaten senseless. She slid herself to the side before turning completely around and backing up the roof. It wouldn't be much, but it should keep her afloat for a while.
Lozen knew she needed a plan, but-CRACK!! Maybe she could-SMASH!!! Perhaps if she-BASH!! Or maybe-CRACK! TWAK! CRUNCH!!! That last one came from her skull and sent a wave of dizziness rushing through her. Fog wove its way around and constructed her mind as the blows were no longer needed to keep her thought process suppressed. A ringing was filling her ears and a numbness through her body that would have been dreamlike under any other circumstances. However, what little piece of her mind could still collect could only do one thing. Fear.
"Don't bother trying to think." She registered a voice saying from somewhere in front of her as she swayed over a slanted surface. "I know how that feels. A real mean fellow over near Kentucky beat me black and blue with these moves a while ago. Took the kind of fire power you don't have to put him down and more then that to pry those techniques out of him." Her eyes just barely managed to register an object swinging towards her that she ducked to the right to avoid. "I will try and make this quick. The pressure's already building in your veins. That should be what you're feeling right now." She took one more step away from the man, her feet skittering out of her control before stopping as they felt her ankles reach the cusp of something. Her body weight dangled over the edge for a moment before she managed to pull herself back onto the edge of the platform.
"It will be painless. All you'll know is that your heart stops." Iscariots replied, his voice becoming familiar to her as a new wave of adrenaline rushed through her. Irrationality and desperation surged along with it and made her start considering very stupid, short sighted ideas. The only kind she could conjure anymore. If she jumped, she might leave. If she rushed him, she might be able to knock him off balance. Maybe runnning to the next building might get some space between her and-"Now hold still. This next one will need to be very precise."
Her mind erupted as she heard that and she felt her legs fly back behind her before she found herself in mid air. She expected there to be some sort of fear to that realization, but what exhaustion was gripping her refused to let her do anything of the sort. Instead, she simply fell. A part of her was collected enough to not expect much after she saw that. Just darkness. Maybe an eventual return-CRACK!!! Her back felt as if it were about to snap well before it should have hit the ground and felt something akin to wood snapping against her spine. It didn't break at least not yet, but the pain she felt rippling through her body and the force of the impact was more than enough to send her wildly flailing over the side of whatever she had hit. A split second later she felt her arm smash against the soft mud below and provide her a good pillow to land right on, but not by much.
The agony surging through her burned away the drowsiness clutching her mind. She came to, but only to a body that felt as if it were trying to tear itself apart. Ironically, the arm she hadn't landed on felt like it was bent in more ways than physically possible with her back filling with a pain that she wished she could scream at. Her throat was seizing up and her neck felt far too painful for comfort, rendering her unable to do little more than just squirming in the mud, gulping like a drowning fish.
Still, at the very least she managed to swing her eyes upward and get a decent look at what may have just saved her life. The mills both had a ramp leading up to their second floor in order to bring wood up to the top level. It was made of a whole bunch of rickety wood and as thin as her body, making it a miracle she had both hit it and done so without collapsing the entire thing. Before she could be thankful to whatever god had granted her that mercy, she saw a dark shape leap down from the roof onto the conveyor belt and then onto the ground right next to her. He stumbled for a moment as the impact clearly got to him, but his landing softened such a blow. And he wasn't alone.
She could see them now as she followed the man down. Silent, dark shapes creeping towards her from around the camp as Iscariot stood over her, making her remember where she was and cursing that the guards weren't farther away. She could see they were each carrying something, but she couldn't tell what and simply assumed guns before her attention was pulled up to the man hanging over her. "You shouldn't have done that. I can't promise there won't be pain anymore." Iscariot said as he reached a hand to his pocket and unsheathed a dagger clasp to his belt. "I suppose this is the best I can do at the moment." He continued as he raised his blade high into the dim sky. "For what it's worth, I really didn't want to harm that village. I just.....I've buried too many people and I need them to stay that way. I know that's not an excuse, but I think you deserve to know. You can come back if you want, but it won't change a thing."
There had to be something she could do. A plan, a way, a path that could take her back to them. But seeing that blade in the sky over her was making it hard to believe that. She could feel her mind racing out of her control, crudely stitching together ideas that could not reasonably work. Out of weapons, time, space, and now ideas and without that, what else was she?
Come on. Get up. Roll away. Fight. Do something. Just do something.
But what else was there to do?
Something. Always something. So don't you dare stop. It doesn't matter if you run off a cliff.
Why?
Because maybe someday, someone will follow you. And who knows, maybe they'll get it right.
So get up.
Several cries escaped from his mouth as she found herself pushing all her weight onto her one good arm and inch by inch, pushing herself back onto her feet. Every inch of her being cried out for her to stop and let herself fall back into the soft, gentle mud, but they all fell on deaf ears. Her teeth ground together and her muscles tore as her legs threatened to snap in half at every moment, but somehow, by some miracle, she managed to drag her disheveled, shambling self onto her feet. Blood and mud ran all across her and her right arm hung limp from her side as the taste of bile pooled in her mouth, but she was still in her feet. Her fingers curled into a fist she knew was pointless and she shot her eyes right into that of the man standing in front of her. Even with all the pain clutching her, she didn't dare break her gaze. She knew, he knew, everybody knew what was coming and she didn't let it think for a second she was afraid. In mere seconds transformed into hours, she stared right at the fool, making sure her death was only that. A mere death that she was unimpressed with. Because in the end, all they could do was kill her.
"Impressive. Are you scared?" Iscariots asked as she stared up at him with unflinching daggers.
"Are you?" She replied, heart steadily beating.
"No."
"You should be."
"Will you come back?"
"I won't need to."
"And why-" He started before, in a single instant, his entire body lurched forward and something came bursting through the dead center of her chest. In the cloudy light, the glint of obsidian could be seen rising up from a long shaft stabbing through his heart. Lozen's eyes widened as much as they could after the beating they had taken and Isacriot seemed to join her in surprise, but neither of them had much time to be alarmed before another arrow struck him. Then another and another and another until a bouquet of projectiles were sticking out of his chest, each dripping with blood.
For a moment, everything seemed to freeze in place. All in mere moments, the knife dropped from Iscariot's hand and he stumbled back away from her on legs that would not last much longer. Blood started belching out from his mouth and his entire body seemed to start collapsing into himself, but somehow Lozen still saw a smile crawling onto his face. It wasn't big enough to be seen or even be acknowledged in any sense, but it was still there. A grin for only him to see. And it looked like he wouldn't have anything else. "Finally." He muttered before his eyelids gently closed and his entire body collapsed lifeless to the ground.
Every inch of Lozen froze to a similar halt as she saw the nameless man hit the floor in front of her, as harmless as the mud cushioning his corpse. Apart of her considered whether what she was saying was a result of sheer blood loss or not and it was only when she glanced in the direction the arrows had come from. She had dismissed the people approaching her and Iscariot as just more guards with good reason. There wasn't anywhere else they could have been and she didn't expect to see anyone else at the mill that day. She was wrong.
Their clothes were dry and coarse, clearly constructed from dried animal hides, their skin actually contained pigment unlike the death like paleness of the colonizers, and in their hands were grasped a variety of weapons made from wood and stone. Bows, axes, knives, some of which she could see were still being used to finish off what little guards they hadn't managed to eliminate on their silent push inward. Their feet were light, barely touching the mud they stood on and the remaining soldiers struggling in the back of the crowd were slowly dispelled without a sound. They knew how to hunt and they knew how to do it quietly, so much so that Lozen herself had failed to notice it.
None of them were in the best condition and considering the fires they had escaped from, she didn't expect them to be. In a one on one assault, they would have never won. So what to do? Kill before they had a chance to strike. Sweep through the base with silent weapons like the hunters they were. It wasn't pretty and she would have never guessed it would have worked, but there Lozen was. Looking out at the village that had followed her.